Posted on 06/15/2018 9:42:43 PM PDT by Kartographer
—What I have found in my latest search, is information that these dogs have been bred for brain abnormalities.
“. . .abnormal disinhibited behavior is not functional, and it is unpredictable. Although high arousal and sudden attack can be functional in certain environments, this behavior is pathological in a safer environment, where a high level of arousal and aggressiveness are not necessary and only lead to unnecessary attacks and injuries. Research implicates the frontal cortex, subcortical structures, and lowered activity of the serotonergic system in impulsive aggression in both dogs and humans. Impulsive aggressive behavior in dogs seems to have a different biological basis than appropriate aggressive behavior.
Kathelijne Peremans, DVM discovered this by studying two different populations of impulsively aggressive dogs. Each dog had executed one or more attacks without the classical preceding warnings, and the severity of the attacks was out of all proportion to environmental stimuli. Peremans found a significant difference in the frontal and temporal cortices of these dogs, but not in the subcortical areas, compared to normal dogs. Peremans also found significant dysfunctions of the serotonergic systems among these dogs.
(Excerpt from book: The Science of How Behavior is Inherited in Aggressive Dogs)(Semyonova)
The above and below are from an article on Semyonova’s book, written by Merritt Clifton, link here: http://www.animals24-7.org/2015/11/10/the-science-of-how-behavior-is-inherited-in-aggressive-dogs/
Continued:
Behavioral conformation
But breeders also selected for behavioral conformation. To perform well, a fighting dog had to attack without provocation or warning, and to continue attacking regardless of the response of the other animal. Bull and bear-baiting dogs had to be willing to attack in the absence of the species-specific signs that normally provoke aggression, responding to the mere presence of another animals, and not stopping in response to external stimuli. The Dogues du Bordeaux used to guard extended farmlands in France, the Boerbulls used similarly in South Africa, and the fugitive slave-chasing dogs of Latin America, such as the Dogo Argentino and Fila Brasiliero, all were selected to specifically for a propensity to kill.
As they selected for performance, breeders could not know exactly which physical changes they were selecting for. But research now shows that selection for aggressive performance includes consistently selecting for very specific abnormalities in the brain. These abnormalities appear in many breeds of dog as an accident or anomaly, which breeders then attempt to breed out of the dogs. In the case of the aggressive breeds, the opposite occurred. Rather than excluding abnormally aggressive dogs from their breeding stock, breeders focused on creating lineages in which all the dogs would carry the genes causing them to reliably exhibit the desired impulsive aggressive behavior.
“That aggression is not heritable is not tenable”
Now that we know exactly which brain abnormalities the breeders of fighting dogs have been selecting, the assertion that this aggression is not heritable is no longer tenable. It is also not tenable to assert that not all the dogs of these breeds will carry the genes that make them dangerous. These genes may occasionally drop out through random accident, just as golden retriever may acquire the genes to be impulsively aggressive. But the failure to have these genes, in the aggressive breeds, is just that––a failure. It is therefore misleading to assert that the aggressive breeds will only have the selected genes as a matter of accident, or that most of them will be fit to interact safely with other animals and humans.
As in the pointer, the husky, the greyhound, and the border collie, the genes of aggressive breeds have been selected so that certain postures and behaviors just simply feel good. These dogs will seek opportunities to execute the behaviors they have been bred for. Because these behaviors are internally motivated and rewarded, they are not subject to extinction. Learning and socialization do not prevent these dogs’ innate behaviors from appearing.
No one doubt that the ablity of other large dogs breeds to commit serious attacks, It is the disproportion of the attacks and deaths cause by Pit Bull and pit bull mixes that are be called to attention here.
Take a look at the adoption list at any cities animal shealter and you will find an disproportion. In many cases 70-80% of the dogs listed are Pits and pit mixes,
These dogs are adopted out whole sale to pretty much everyone and anyone but you tell me how may of these dogs go to people with the skills, knowledge and ability to train and maintain?
These dogs far to oftenend up with people who are totally incapable of training and controlling them.
” . . .Preliminary “final” 2017 dog attack data from the U.S. and Canada suggests some good news, in that “only” 989 dogs participated in killing or disfiguring humans, down from the 2016 record 1,075.
But the bad news is that those 989 dogs killed 57 people, 11 more than the previous record of 46 who were killed in 2015.
Pit bulls killed 40 people in 2017, 39 in the U.S. and one in Canada, a total of 12 more people than were killed by pit bulls in 2016 and five more than the previous record of 34 killed in 2015.”
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I read the article you posted on the baby killed by the German Shepherd. This was an horrible, and most likely preventable, tragedy. As are so many.
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The site you took from which you took your figures appears to be using CDC data, which has not collected dogbite data by breed since 1998, and is most effective for historical use.
This is the reason I and others use the data collected by Merritt Clifton, who collects and collates by news articles over the last 35 years, at the website above.
You cannot tell the gender of a 4 year old kid? OUCH
Rat population?
You are getting confused with a Jack Russell or other small dog.
You need to get your facts straight.
Pitbullfacts.org.
You obviously need to do a little research on this matter.
Yes indeed. The problem stems from that gang. Both thebdogs and their people are unsavory.
For the record, I believe and use his (Clifton’s) statistics as reference information on Pit-bull type dogs. I do understand that he is NOT a conservative, especially on Second Amendment matters.
He is, however, hated with a passion and receives an enormous amount of vitriol - up to and including death threats - by pit bull advocates for his views, and has for at least twenty years.
I have yet to find anyone who can prove his statistics false or his methodology any more flawed than that of the insurance industry - who have apparently reached the same conclusions of risk re these dogs.
Interesting. Do you have a source for that?
Why do you suppose that is?
They had a system in place to gather that data. Why was it scrapped?
A bureaucracy never shrinks or pulls back a tentacle without a great deal of pressure...
A good first step would be for shelters to adopt a policy of no adoption of pit bulls - hold 3 days and then put it down. It would clear out the shelters for animals that should be adopted.
Sounds like a good start to me.
Works for me!
That would be the normal shelters, if the Chet 99s and the Norskis of the world want to set up exclusive competing pit bull only adoption facilities, well, it’s a free country, let them!
I do, but the link is saved in another computer, which I can't access right now.
Do a search on 'bull terriers', and you'll find it.
And you need to mind your manners, stranger.
If you think you've got better information, just point a person to it. Politely.
Good work, Norski.
Bottom line — the pit bull is a case of selective breeding gone terribly wrong.
I thought Chet got bounced from FR because he was anti-pit bull. I know at one point there was one moderator that was pro-pit.
Hmmmm. Darned if I remember, you could well be right!
Memory’s the second thing to go...
Another Pit Bull becomes a Good Pit Bull. Too bad people got hurt in the process.
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